Facebook users should be more careful in future about reaching out and touching someone after a survey by a UK divorce Website showed that 33 percent of behaviour petitions cited Facebook as a reason for filing for divorce.
The alarming news for Mark Zuckerberg comes from UK divorce website Divorce-Online. It reportedly carried out a survey of 5,000 people in both 2011 and 2009.
In 2009 only 20 percent of behaviour petitions contained the word “Facebook” but in December 2011 this number alarmingly increased to 33 percent of petition allegations.
Unsurprisingly, the most common reason was spouses behaviour with the opposite sex. However it seems that vengeful ex-es are also using Facebook after they have seperated to make comments about their former partners on their wall.The online divorce specialist blogged about the most common reasons for Facebook being cited in divorce proceedings.
In summary, the top three reasons are:
“Social networking has become the primary tool for communication and is taking over from text and email, in my opinion,” said Mark Keenan a spokesman for Divorce-Online. “If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then this is the easiest place to do it. Also the use of Facebook to make comments about ex-partners to friends has become extremely common with both sides using Facebook to vent their grievances against each other.”
“People need to be careful what they write on their walls as the courts are seeing these posts being used in financial disputes and children cases as evidence,” he added.
It seems that Twitter is also making an appearance in the divorce stakes, but the word Twitter apparently only appeared in 20 petitions as part of the allegations. Again, it was the use of Twitter as a communication tool to make comments about ex-es that featured in most tweets.
The legal profession is slowly catching on to the increasing use of social networking, and IT in general, in many divorce cases and other legal proceedings. Back in December, 2010, for example, a court case in America resulted in a significant development for co-habiting couples or married people who are sharing a computer with one another.
This was because a man from Rochester Hills, Michigan, was charged under US anti-hacking laws, after he broke into the Gmail account of his wife Clara, who he suspected was having an affair with a former husband. Clara had apparently been married twice before, and the emails that Leon discovered confirmed his suspicions of his wife’s infidelity.
In other instances, escaped criminals have used Facebook to taunt the police. And another recent survey found that most Brits are drunk in their Facebook photos.
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The figures above are innacurate. It's actually one in 20 petitions that mention Facebook. Click here for more: http://www.articleslash.com/Relationships/Divorce/657296__Is-Facebook-Really-Responsible-for-a-Third-of-all-Divorces.html
The company that produced the press release are renowned for producing misleading, shallow studies.
always said it should be called scumbook,bundles of trash written on it everyday
hang on, arent we all adults?... yet you are looking to blame a website for your own actions?... fact is, if you cheat using facebook, you would cheat if you were out in the pub....facebook didnt make you do it, its called oppertunity... people cheat because they arent entirely happy at home or because they miss the thrill of the chase from their single days... you cant blame a social site for that, if they didnt exist would you blame the government for allowing opposite sex people to blatently walk the streets making you give into temptation???...no, so stop whining and accept your own actions you bunch of prats.
It takes over peoples lives!... my (now!) ex did the dirty because of Facebook!...It's amazing how intrusive and destroying this site can actually be!..let alone what information/personal details you can find out about a person, it is so easy!
Not a fan now ..obviously! but life is too short to be worrying about past..GET OUT and live! not sit and tell the world what you had for breakfast, were you are going that day bla bla bla...!!
Facebook is an absolute joke for 90% of the time. When I actually settle down the first thing for me to do will be delete my facebook account :)!
How is that Facebook's fault? In this context, Facebook just provides means for "distributing" the information. It is the spouse's behaviour that causes the problems. It's like blaming your travel agency for the mess you made in your hotel room while on vacation.
Its not just divorces......its family splits.
Its like a virus that spreads and spreads and causes
so many upsets.
I do so wish it could be banned. It has certainly
devastated our family.
Facebook isnt the problem. People who use it but cant control it are the problem!
Youngsters with thousands of fake friends is a far more worrying stat!
Exactly - it has nothing to do with facebook or any other social networking site - it is the behaviour of the spouse that is at fault - when he/she uses a site to behave badly. Facebook did not cause any marital problems the spouse that used it and caused the problems. How bizzare that they blame a site - why not blame a PC/laptop????
facebook is not the reason for the marriage problems, it is just because the other partner this time finds out about it - before the behaviour was more likely to be at the pub on a friday night after a few drinks so the other partner didn't find out it. The behaviour is still there - but this time it's more public.
I for one am hugely grateful to the transparency of Facebook. I'd been FB friends with a guy for a couple of years then started seeing him for ~8 months...until his friends unwittingly tagged him in photos of his own stag party (-I didn't know he was engaged. 'Nuff said.) The hurt/damage caused is not FB's fault, it sits squarely on him. Had it not been for FB, I'm sure he would have continued his lying/cheating for much longer. I ended it, despite his denials and counterclaims that FB was false. His fiancee later found out via FB too but again, he denied everything and so they married (2010). I've heard his now wife still keeps their wedding photo as her profile pic - proof perhaps that doesn't believe she's been cheated on regardless of the FB revelations....and that a beautiful liar will always be so.
I, for one, am hugely grateful to Facebook for its transparency: I’d been friends with a guy for a couple of years prior to being in relationship with him for ~ 8 months. Until that is, his friends tagged him in photos of his own stag party. (I didn’t know he was engaged. ‘Nuff said.) The hurt I felt was overwhelming but that’s not Facebook’s fault, it’s his. I ended it with him, despite his denials and counterclaims that the Facebook photos were a joke. I’m sure he would have continued lying/cheating me had it not been for the Facebook expose. He also denied everything when his fiancée later found out via Facebook he’d been cheating and they married (2010). I’ve since heard that his now-wife continues to display their wedding photo as her profile pic – a sign perhaps that she didn’t believe the Facebook revelations and more to the point, that a beautiful liar will always be so and get away with it, regardless of the social medium that exposes them of their cheating.
What a crock - why not blame the pc or laptop that was used to access facebook then?
Hate crap book, spurn of the devil, especially for youngsters who get bullied to death on it!! Yes you can delete people, but they will still do it via other friends 'wall' that you can see!
At least when we were younger, when you went home from school it finished until the next day, now with social sites it's 24 hours of abuse and hatred!
May I just say that if you or your child are being bullied on a social site, keep ALL the messages and report them to the police, they will do something beause a crime has been committed.
people cheat because they want to - one way or another they will find a way if they are unhappy